Re: Piotr: Brittonic?

> Didn't Pictish have features found in Gaulish but not Brittonic?

No one's ever proven such a thing - and I don't think they could,
since Brittonic and Gaulish are virtually the same language (which is
why many Celticists speak of "Gallo-Brittonic" as a language family).

> Could it have been a 3rd Brythonic dialect, along with Brittonic and
> Gaulish, but have been closer to Gaulish? This would explain why

it was

> regarded as a seperated dialect from British and Gaelic in Medieval
> chronicles.

By the dark ages, Pictish could very easily have split off as a
separate Brittonic dialect - already Cumbric, Welsh, and Breton were
developing into separate dialects - the geography and political
environment of Pictland would have aided this process.

> Also, I still think that it was a possibility that the
> Gaulish similarities (though this is not proven) could have been

because

> there may have been a relation between the Picts and the Pictones

in W

> Gaul, who, though originally Aquitanian, may have later acquired

Gaulish

> speech due to their geographical position.

I really doubt there is any connection between the Picts of Britain
and the Pictones of Gaul - first of all, the Picts of Britain were
even originally styled as such, and it seems most likely that they
were called Picti "Painted ones" by Romans (or Romanized Britons) of
the south because the northern Britons kept up native British
tatooing traditions, which were not favored by Roman citizens and
seen as a sign of barbarism. Pictones seems to me to be a genuine
Gaulish tribal name ("the Audacious/Strong ones", from Gaulish *pecc-
).

- Chris Gwinn